Ah, the 90s. A time when Suede, too, had a song out called “Trash.” A time when environmental conscientiousness was peddled upon unsuspecting millennials duped into thinking it was all just a natural part of their elementary school curriculum. Perhaps Kate Nash can identify with this form of nostalgia for a time when a song like “Recycle, Reduce, Reuse” by a preadolescent dinosaur named Recycle Rex was a staple of Saturday morning cartoons (often as roundabout a tie-in with Captain Planet). Sure, she’s British and probably never saw it, but hey, American self-involvement knows no bounds in making the sort of assumption that the U.K. might have been experiencing a similar “let’s protect the planet” jag.
What’s more, considering Kate Nash’s key influences are fellow 90s go-tos (the other implied go-to being the chicness of recycling) and American heroes Bikini Kill and Hole–the former being heavily noticeable as an inspiration–surely she must have been cognizant of the American trend of promoting environmental awareness (did anyone even know about Earth Day before the 90s?). In any case, it would seem she’s tapped into these grunge-tinged influences more than ever to find her inner child just seeking to fulfill “an easy thing to do” that “begins with me and you” in terms of “clos(ing) the loop.” Already a long-time activist in such arenas, the motivation behind the track came when Athena Pagington, a makeup artist who frequently wields her avant-garde style for Dazed and is known for her ardent promotion of cruelty-free beauty, curated an art show that asked its participants to “collect their single-use plastic for a certain number of days and then make something out of it.” So naturally (literally), Nash gravitated toward a musical use of the project, “experiment[ing] with actually creating records from epoxy resin with [her] single-use plastic cut-up and put into the records… The whole thing really inspired [her], and now [she] want(s) to work on more music with an ethical/environmental agenda.”
The resulting “ethical” agenda for the moment is the song and video for “Trash,” which is heavy on the lo-fi 90s vibes both visually and sonically as Nash playfully moves about (frequently in double form–in keeping with that elementary school picture day vibe circa ’92) in front of the back drops of scenes of environmental ruin. It’s all very serious yet simultaneously tongue-in-cheek as one imagines this sort of VHS-esque product being made at the mall. Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Nash affair if the lyrics weren’t dually aimed at the torture of being in love as she makes analogies such as, “Impure toxic devotion runs through me like a river to a plastic ocean” and “Chemicals burn inside my heart/I’m holding on like a car that just can’t start,” before delving straight into the chorus that declares “I’m trash, trash, trash for you.” How you take that meaning is, of course, dependent upon how you yourself act in relationships–as the one willing to turn to trash in the sense that you become an emotional whipping boy (or rather, girl) for the one you love (or think you do–it’s hard to tell when you’ve got trash in the eyes obscuring your vision) or, you know, something to the effect of becoming a heap on the floor–getting all mushy–in the presence of your boo.
As far as being one of the great love songs of the twenty-first century at the moment, “Trash” also has the unique distinction of being beautifully stuck in the 90s in terms of its Recycle Rex-oriented message and production. Plus, no one else has managed to so eloquently compare the destruction of Mother Nature to the similarly unavoidable and (to most sensible people) unwanted phenomenon of love. Unless you count Darren Aronofsky’s mother!. But one knows Jennifer Lawrence’s character did not believe “Kissing felt like oxygen.” She definitely felt like trash though, in the non-romantic sort of way that is the opposite of what’s described herein the contents of this song.
